Sunday, 8 December 2013

Victorian Marriage

Marriage
in Victorian society was treated differently to the fairy-tale scene we imagine
now. The marriages in this period were treated more like a business deal than a
romantic gesture or expression of love. Women were largely uneducated (apart
from in domesticity's) so it was viewed as necessary for a woman to marry so
that she would have someone to look after her and provide for her.

Victorian
girls had been brought up with firm intentions of marrying a suitable husband
of the same or higher social class that she. Among the working class, girls
would marry around the age of fourteen, however the middle class girls would
marry in their early twenties, much like today’s society. If a woman was to
remain unmarried she would be referred to as a spinster. The dictionary term
for a spinster just before the Victorian period was “the common title by which a woman without rank or distinction
is designated” (1828 edition). Just after the Victorian period ended, this was
edited to “An unmarried or single woman”, “A woman of evil life and character”
(1913 edition) showing the stigma that grew and was attached to unmarried women
during the Victorian period.

Wedding dresses were a thing of importance, as
they still are, following the fashion of the times. The wedding dresses for the
middle class differed throughout the course of the Victorian period. The
designs, shapes and details of the wedding dresses depended largely on the
fashion and dress of the most recent royal weddings.

This
Victorian wedding dress to the left can be found at the Bolton Museum. The
dress has been dated between 1840 and 1850. The ‘v’ of the waist and the full
skirt shows that this is a middle class woman’s bridal gown following the influence
of Queen Victoria’s own gown (as shown in the image to the right).

The
importance of marriage was not only felt by the young males and females looking
for a partner, but by the parents as well. Arranged marriages had gone out the
window by this point, but families were still influencing who their children
should meet and engage in courtship with. This freedom to choose who they
married did not dramatically increase the level of romance regarded in
marriage, rather it meant that the male was able to choose a woman who owned a
fair amount, as once married, her property would become his.

The
large focus on money and social status left very little scope for romance to
dominate in the relationship. As is shown in literary texts from the Victorian
era, it was not uncommon or unfathomable that couples should marry for issues
such as social status and inheritance. Charlotte Bronte demonstrates this in
her novel Jane Eyre:

“I
saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps for political reasons;
because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had not given her his
love” (Jane Eyre, 216).

The
set rules and etiquette in society meant that courtship was an important and
closely monitored factor of encountering the woman’s husband-to-be. During the
courtship and engagement period, the two families would discuss financial
issues. The male needed to be sufficient in providing his wife with a
reasonable or desirable amount of wealth for living, while the woman (or the
woman’s father) had to provide a dowry. A dowry in the Victorian era consisted
of the money and property that the bride would inherit otherwise when her
parents died.

Essentially
everything the woman owned is handed over to her husband. This not only concerns
material or object things but also her body. Once a woman marries, she loses
her right to refuse sex with her husband, as essentially her mind and body are
his. The bond of marriage takes away from the ladies freedom as she spends her
time looking after her husband and in turn, his children. When accepting a
marriage proposal and going ahead with the wedding, the woman must bear in mind
the gender roles that she is expected to fulfil within marriage and married
life. Women were expected to look after the household, husband and children.
Working class women also needed to work alongside these tasks, meaning they had
less time with their children.

Married
life for women was viewed as essential to maintain a respectable view of
themselves in society. However it was not always a life of luxury, enjoyment
and happiness. Edith Wharton’s The
Fullness of Life (1893) reveals the stagnant life of a married middle class
woman:

“I have sometimes thought that a woman’s nature
is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone
passes in going in and out; the drawing room, where one receives formal visits;
the sitting room, where the members of the family come and go as they list; but
beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors perhaps
are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows whither they lead;
and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone.”

"And your
husband," asked the Spirit, after a pause, "never got beyond the
family sitting-room?"

"Never," she
returned, impatiently; "and the worst of it was that he was quite content
to remain there.”

This
shows that married life can be lonely and dull, even for the middle class,
rather than the fantasy of romance that we hold in our minds today.

Due
to the lack of romance, it was not uncommon that there were unhappy marriages. Bronte’s
Rochester talks about his wife Bertha claiming;

“I
could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her” (353).

During
this period however, divorces were not very common or easy to obtain. A divorce
was extremely expensive meaning that the poor were forced to remain in unhappy
marriages. Another reason women remained married was to avoid the social stigma
that was placed on divorced women.

1 comment:

Reading your blog, it is interesting how marriage has changed since then. It is very interesting how parents had more of a say than their daughter about who she will marry. The quotes from Jane Eyre back up your point further, as well as showing how they chose their partners according to rank and how much money they had.